It is well known that when a marble, granite or terrazzo floor is first installed, it has a beautiful and attractive shine. However, after a short period of time, the floor becomes scratched, scuffed and dulled. In the maintenance or restoration of marble, granite or terrazzo floors, a variety of power-driven implements have been utilized to facilitate scrubbing and cleaning of relatively large floor areas to bring back the original crystalline finish.
One popular machine for such maintenance or restoration work, is a rotary scrubbing or buffing machine. Such a machine is shown in FIG. 1, and generally includes an electric motor, a handle extending at an angle upwardly toward the operator from a motor housing, a holding tank, which contains cleaning fluid, positioned on or above the motor housing and a scrubbing, polishing disk or base member attached to the motor drive shaft beneath the motor.
The disk or base member usually includes a cleaning pad or bonnet disposed thereon. This pad bears directly on the floor and applies the cleaning fluid thereto. The combined rotational, lateral and forward movement of the pad performs the cleaning and scrubbing action.
Conventional pads or cleaning disks are more or less of mop-like or shag-like consistency, in that the surface which bears on the floor is relatively soft and yielding. The trouble with such conventional pads is that they lack the aggressive stripping and scrubbing means which are necessary to perform an effective cleaning action. Such conventional pads are about as effective as using a standard mop over the hard floor surface, no worthwhile deep cleaning action is achieved.
More recently, pads have been provided with firmer surfaces, these pads are made by tightly looping strands of strong synthetic material through a base sheet of material. The resulting pad is much like a hooked rug as its working surface is firm. The firmer surface more actively cleans the floor and loosens a considerable amount of unwanted material. However, such pads are problematic because they do not restore the crystalline finish to the marble, granite or terrazzo floors. Moreover, since these types of pads lack aggressive scrubbing action, it is often necessary to use dangerous toxic or strong chemicals in the cleaning fluid to assist in the removal of material from the floor.
Attempts to resolve the lack of aggressive scrubbing action in the conventional cleaning pads yielded a cleaning pad with a diamond grit surface. The diamond grit surface is particularly effective in restoring a marble, granite or terrazzo floor to its original crystalline finish. However, such diamond grit pads have disadvantages because they are expensive and not easily mounted to the base member of the rotary cleaning machine.
A conventional method for mounting a diamond grit pad to a base member, includes permanently securing a neoprene rubber layer to the base member with epoxy. The diamond grit pad is then permanently secured to the neoprene rubber layer with epoxy also. This type of mounting system is problematic in that once the diamond grit pad wears out the entire base member, neoprene rubber layer and diamond grit pad must be replaced. Furthermore, to change between a course or fine diamond grit pad, the entire combination must be replaced. Thus, this conventional combination for mounting diamond grit pads is prohibitively expensive and cumbersome to use.
This system is also expensive because the diamond grit pad often spans the entire cleaning surface or area of the neoprene rubber layer thereby increasing the cost of the diamond grit pad itself. The conventional diamond grit pad mounting method is also problematic in that the epoxy fails to hold the base member, neoprene rubber layer and diamond grit pad together because of the rotational, lateral and forward movement of the cleaning disk in the wet environment. Therefore, such conventional cleaning disks often come unglued after a certain amount of usage. Consequently, a need has arisen for a cleaning disk for a rotary floor cleaning machine which can securely but releasably receive a plurality of relatively small diamond grit pads for efficiently and economically cleaning hard to restore floors, such as marble, granite or terrazzo floors.
The present invention overcomes many of the inherent disadvantages in the above-mentioned cleaning disks or pads. The present invention provides a base member to be secured to the rotary floor cleaning machine which includes a plurality of pliable cleaning pad mounting members releasably secured thereto by a nut and bolt arrangement. A corresponding plurality of cleaning pads having a diamond grit cleaning surface are secured to each of the cleaning pad mounting members by a hook and loop material. Such a combination yields a cleaning disk which achieves restoration of marble, granite and terrazzo floors to their original crystalline finish. Moreover, such a cleaning disk is economically efficient since a relatively small area of diamond grit surface is utilized, and the diamond grit pads can be changed or replaced without having to replace the entire disk. Thus, the cleaning disk of the present invention restores marble, granite and terrazzo floors to their original crystalline finish in an economical manner.